If you are looking for the best network for your business, this post will interest you, because we are going to explain how to use Instagram to boost your business. Among all the social networks, Instagram is the best for business, and we are going to explain why.
Instagram today has around 200 million users and that is why 25 million companies in the world have decided to use Instagram as the social network to boost their brand. In addition to the high volume of active users, Instagram offers other advantages for your company, such as create a community and build customer loyalty. In this post, we are going to give you some tips to get you started with a successful digital strategy on Instagram.
Why is Instagram better than other social networks for my business?
Even though all social networks have the goal of connecting users, they are different from each other because the dynamics in each of them have more specific purposes. Thus, Twitter, which is a microblog, is perfect for monitoring the opinions of your products and your brand, TikTok is perfect for presenting a new product, especially to a young audience.
Facebook and Instagram are the most important social networks today, as they have the most active users, which is why they are the social networks that you can best take advantage of for your business. However, although both go hand in hand and have very similar features there are very clear differences Facebook focuses on connecting people and sharing content from family and friends, while Instagram becomes the social network for businesses and entrepreneurs, because they get more interaction with your followers than with other networks, it is easier to create loyalty and the best thing is that you can set and achieve realistic business goals.
Instagram is the most important social network for audiovisual content and this type of content attracts much more attention than a text in a tweet or a Facebook post, of course it also involves much more work, but here are some tips to make your Instagram strategy a success.
1. Create your business account on Instagram
This step is a bit obvious, but it is always good to start at the beginning, however obvious it may seem, and in this case the first thing you must do is create a business account. The first thing you need to know is that it will be easier if you already have a Fan page or a Facebook account because you can link your data quickly.
To open your business account on Instagram you just must enter the social network, then click on register as a business and then select the option start with Facebook, so you will have some data that will help you to start.
If you already had a personal account with which you were advertising your business, it is best to change it to a business account, because the results are unparalleled. You only must go to your profile, then to settings and then select “change to business account”, here you also have the option to log in from Facebook.
Pay attention to your profile data
It is advisable that before creating your profile you plan the data that you will place in your Instagram profile and biography, as they will be the data with which your followers can find you outside Instagram. The first thing is the username, the ideal is to use the same name of your business and the same you are using in other networks.
Your biography on Instagram is more important than you think, and you have no more than 150 characters, so plan well what you want to tell, because you must tell new users what your brand is about. It is recommended that you use some hashtags or tags in it to help position your profile in some searches.
Your profile picture is very important, because remember that Instagram adapts your image to a circle, so verify that after this it is complete or at least that it looks what you want. Ideally, you should upload a file of 320 x 320 pixels. It is best to use your logo, if you don’t have one, use the same image you use in other networks.
2. Create your buyer
One of the most important features of advertising on Facebook and Instagram is that you can be very specific to choose your target audience for a campaign, so do not waste this opportunity, because in addition to targeting your campaigns, you can make a better focused content. So one of your main tasks after opening your Instagram account is to create your buyer. Having their characteristics will help you to better plan each publication.
3. Publish on a fixed schedule
Once you have defined your buyer persona, and you already have some publications in mind, it’s time to start publishing, but first you should know that the time you publish matters a lot.
The perfect time to publish depends a lot on the niche and audience you are targeting, however, you can make the calculation according to the statistics of your profile. We know it’s a bit complicated to post at the right time, especially when your ideal times are at night or in the early morning. Fortunately, there are several applications that will help you schedule your publications, and many of them will also give you very complete statistics of each publication.
4. Check the statistics
One of the great advantages that Instagram offers you is the quality of the statistics, as they are quite complete. To check them you just have to go to your profile, then select the icon of three bars, located in the upper left corner, then go to the statistics section.
In this section you will find statistics such as number of followers, average age, best times to post. You can review your account data up to 30 days in advance.
5. Use reels
As we have said, Instagram is the queen social network of audiovisual content, so your content must go beyond creative photos, so start taking advantage of reels.
Reels are short videos with a maximum duration of 60 seconds to which you can add music, and filters. These videos are perfect for you to promote a new product and interact with your audience. The best thing is that you can upload these videos to stories or send them via direct messages.
The general recommendations are to make videos of maximum 15 seconds, use flashy predesigned and trendy music. Also, it is convenient to use the platform’s predesigned filters.
6. Let the content speak for your business
On Instagram the most important thing is to create visually appealing content, the truth is that making spectacular publications is an art, however there are some tips to improve your engagement.
The ideal is that you start to form an aesthetic around your brand, you can do this by choosing the same filter in all your publications or choosing a color that appears in all your photos.
Another excellent tip is to take advantage of the full potential of your products and services, think about how you can present them, for example if you have a restaurant, in addition to posting photos of your menu, you can also post videos of the preparation or the opinions of your customers. If you sell clothes, in addition to photos of your clothes, you can post videos of the outfits that can be put together.
7. Harness the power of stories
According to the Meta business site, more than 400 million people use Instagram Stories every day and 48% of respondents turn to stories for gift buying ideas during festive periods, imagine all they can do for your business.
Stories and reels are different, although both are videos, the main difference is how long they stay online, while reels can stay up indefinitely stories only stay up for 24 hours, they are ephemeral. Another difference is that reels are only videos, while stories can include images, links and video clips.
One of the advantages of stories is that you can increase engagement because you can include hashtags, polls and votes that can give you an idea of what the public thinks about a product.
8. Interact with your audience
One of the main functions of Instagram is to create a community, and for this you need more than just good photos and eye-catching posts. If you want to make your followers fall in love with you and make them loyal to your brand you must be willing to interact with them, so read the comments, respond when they ask you direct questions, or when they mention you in other publications, if you can’t respond to everyone at least give them likes, your audience will always thank you for taking the time to listen to them and know their opinion.
Today Instagram is one of the most important social networks for business and the public knows it, if your business still does not use it, you cannot let more time pass without opening your company profile on this social network, but first tell us, how else do you think Instagram can help your business?